Missing Indian mountaineer Malli Mastan found dead

Ace Indian mountaineer Malli Mastan Babu, who went missing in the Andes during his solo expedition, has been reported to be dead. After Malli went missing, grief-stricken near and dear ones had created a Facebook page named 'Rescue Malli Mastan'.

Announcing the sad demise of the mountaineer, the status on the page was today updated as 'Mountains retained its favourite child.. R.I.P Malli Mastan Babu'. Even the social media platform Twitter is flooded with tweets to mourn the death of the mountaineer.

The Indian mountaineer, who hails from Andhra Pradesh, was on a sole expedition to climb up mountains between Argentina and Chile in South America.

His solo expedition began on March 24 and Malli was scheduled to return to the base camp at Cerro Tres Cruceson on March 25. Unfortunately, he



didn't return to the base camp till date and all attempts of communicating with him has failed.

Spokesperson of Malli's friends and family, Saurabh Uboweja told Hindustan Times, "The authorities did a brief rescue mission on March 25 but that did not result in anything fruitful.

"Since the weather at the time (on that side if the mountain) was bad, the authorities thought he might have climbed down the Chile side. But beyond that there was no rescue operation for two days."

The 40-year-old had climbed the Seven Summits in just 172 days.

He is the first Indian to climb through all the passes between Mt. Sagarmatha (Everest) and Mt. Khangchendzonga.

Malli Mastan Babu is an alumnus of IIM, Calcutta and IIT-Kharagpur.